Idle No More calls on all people to join in a revolution which honors and fulfills Indigenous sovereignty which protects the land and water. Colonization continues through attacks to Indigenous rights and damage to the land and water. We must repair these violations, live the spirit and intent of the treaty relationship, work towards justice in action, and protect Mother Earth.

As a Canadian citizen, I would like to declare that I am opposed to recent legislation passed by my representatives in government. I implore Canada to reopen for discussion the issues contained in Bill C-45 including all encompassed Bills so there can be a proper debate as outlined in the United Nations Declarations. It is imperative that ALL Canadians be informed of the impact these Bills have on our environment as well as our relationship with First Nations peoples in Canada.

We realize that the treaties made with Indigenous people will serve as protection to all Canadians, land, water and environment. The Treaties were nation to nation agreements that were supposed to benefit all people. However, it is clear that the devastating effects of colonialism has created inequality in Canada where settler Canadians have benefited greatly from the Treaties, land and resources while First Nations communities lack sufficient resources. Our government has promised reconciliation for the impact of hundreds of years of colonialism and racism, which has produced effects in First Nations communities such as intergenerational trauma, high suicide rates, and one of the highest incarceration rates in the country. It is clear that these Bills will exasperate these effects.

In addition, I understand that for Aboriginal culture to be sustained, connection to the land and water is imperative. These Bills fall under the United Nations definition of genocide, and as a Canadian Citizen I recognize the Bills as both illegal and immoral.

Each one of these bills is in direct violation of Article 18, 19, and 20 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Article 18 :Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision- making institutions.
Article 19 :States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.
Article 20: 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and develop their political, economic and social systems or institutions, to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence and development, and to engage freely in all their traditional and other economic activities. 2. Indigenous peoples deprived of their means of subsistence and development are entitled to just and fair redress. We represent First Nations and environmental, recreation and grassroots groups supported by more than half a million Canadians.
It is contrary to democratic principles that, despite the opposition of millions of Canadians to the attacks on nature and democracy in omnibus bill C-38, the government has chosen to rewrite some of Canada's foundational environmental protection laws by inappropriately including amendments in another massive omnibus bill, C-45.

As a Canadian citizen of British ancestory - in other words, a settler - I was never taught the colonial nature of our country's pre-history and founding. In the past five years or so I have learned about the two-row wampum and have seen the Welcoming Belt that Grandfather William Commanda kept. I have learned that our Parliament (and in fact my own home) is built on unceded Algonquin land. I have learned that early Canadian governments were looking for ways to solve "the Indian problem". The motive and methods sicken me.

The UNDRIP articles make it very clear that the current situation is unethical and morally problematic; in my mind the RCAP - which was never really acted upon - did so as well.

The relationship between the Canadian government and the First Nations - both status and non status - must be reset. A moratorium on some development should be put in place; otherwise situations similar to that near Kingston - where the FNs lands were literally being removed from an quarry while the government apparently bargained in bad faith - will continue to occur.

Canada's hypocrisy in claiming to defend the rights of those in other countries while trampling the rights of the FNs has to stop.

and as a Canadian Citizen I recognize the Bills as both illegal and immoral. <-- I don't consider myself Canadian or American. I'm Haudenosaunee, People of the Iroquois Confederacy. We were here before there ever was a Canada. Make sure you know who you are and how you identify yourself.

I am a Canadian citizen/non-indigenous in solidarity with you. Am printing this to give to all my relatives and we will send it out tomorrow. Thank you for all your efforts. You are great leaders. The world needs you, and I for one am grateful for your visionary work and example, and I am bursting with passion to see what you are doing, and will help every way I can.